Tonight subject
matter: “Great Expectations“-for here I am referring to the book by (Charles)
Dickens.

Now: the year
1980 exists in all of its potential versions, now in this moment. Because mass
events are concerned there is not a completely different year, of course, for
each individual on the face of the planet—but there are literally an endless
number of mass shared worlds of 1980 “ in the wings, “ so to speak.

It is not quite
as simple a matter as just deciding what events you want to materialize as
reality, since you have, in your terms, a body of probabilities of one kind or
another already established as the raw materials for the coming year. It would
be quite improbable for you, Joseph (as Seth calls me), too suddenly turn into a
tailor, for example, for none of your choices with probabilities have lead
towards such action.

In like manner,
England in all probability next year will not suddenly turn into a Mohammedan
nation. But within the range of workable probabilities, private and mass
choices, the people of the world are choosing their probable 1980’s.

(Long pause) I am
taking my time here, for there are some issues that I would like to clear up,
that are difficult to explain.

Any of the
probable actions that a person considers are a part of that person’s conscious
thought. Just underneath, however, people also consider other sets of
probabilities that may or may not reach conscious level, simply because they are
shunted aside, or because they seem to meet with no conscious recognition. I
want you to try and imagine actual events, as you think of them, to be (pause)
the vitalized representations of probabilities—that is, as the physical versions
of mental probabilities. The probabilities with which you are not consciously
concerned remain psychologically peripheral: They are there but not there, so to
speak.

Your conscious
mind can only accept a certain sequence of probabilities has recognized
experience. As I have said, the choices among probabilities go on constantly,
both on conscious and unconscious levels. Events that you do not perceive as
conscious experiences are (pause) a part of your unconscious
experience, however, to some extent. This applies to the individual, and of
course enmasse the same applies to world events. Each action seeks all of its
own possible fulfillments. All This Is seeks all possible experience, but in
such a larger framework in this case that questions of, say, pain and
death simply do not apply, though [certainly] they do on the physical level (all
quite forcefully).

Great
expectations, basically, have nothing to do with the degree, for a grass blade
is filled with great expectations. Great expectations are built upon a faith in
the nature of reality, a faith in nature itself, a faith in the life you are
given, what ever its degree—and all children, for example, are born with those
expectations. Fairy tales are indeed often—though not always—carriers of a kind
of underground knowledge, as per your discussion about Cinderella ( also see the
824th session for Mass Events), and the greatest fairy tales are
always those in which the greatest expectations went out: The elements of the
physical world that are unfortunate can be changed in the twinkling of an eye
through great expectations.

Your education
tells you that all of that is nonsense, that the world is defined by its
physical aspects alone. When you think of power you think of, say, nuclear
energy, or solar energy—but power is the creative energy within men’s
minds allows them to use such powers, such energies, such forces.

The true power is
in the imagination which dares to speculate upon that which is not yet
(intently). The imagination, backed by great expectations, can bring about
almost any reality within the range of probabilities. All of the possible
versions of 1980 will happen. Except for those you settle upon, all of the
others will remain psychologically peripheral, in the background of your
conscious experience—but all of those possible versions will be connected in one
way or another.

The import
lessons have never really appeared in your societies: the most beneficial use of
the directed will, with great expectations, and that coupled with the knowledge
of Framework 1 and 2 activities. Very simply: you want something, you
draw upon it consciously for a while, you consciously imagine it coming to the
forefront of probabilities, closer to your actuality. Then you drop it like a
pebble into Framework 2, forget about it as much as possible for a fortnight,
and do this in a certain rhythm.

I gave you some
New Year’s resolutions last year, and it seems to me (with some irony) that they
could be resurrected.

They are as good,
tell Ruburt, who does not read them now, as they were then. They help focus both
mind and imagination. That focusing helps you to act, to be. Now give us a
moment.

Now: In our book,
I will be doing my best to explain the origin of your universe, and in such a
way that most of the pertinent questions are answered, but man’s present concept
of reality is so limited that I must often resort to analogies.

In the most basic
of terms, as 1980 happens the energy that comes into your universe is as new as
if (in your terms) the world where created yesterday—a point that will be rather
difficult to explain. All of the probable versions of 1980 spin off their own
probable pasts as well as their own probable futures, and any consciousness that
exists in 1980 was (again in those terms) a part of what you think of as the
beginning of the world. (To me) Your mother did not simply choose to believe, in
her old age, in a different past than the one that was accepted by the
family—she effectively changed probabilities. She was not diluted or obsessed.
Her memory in that regard, now, was not defective: It was the memory of the
probable woman that she became.

Like the entire
American hostage affair (in Iran), any physical event serves as a focus that
attracts all of its probable versions and outcomes. The hostage situation (now
in day 53) is a materialized mass dream, meant to be important and vital on
political and religious platforms of reality, meant to dramatize a conflict of
beliefs, and to project that conflict outward into the realm of public
knowledge. Everyone involved was consciously and unconsciously a willing
participant at the most basic levels of human behavior, and it is of course no
coincidence that 1980 is immediately foreshadowed by that event. What will the
world do with it?

Your TV and news
systems of communication are a part of the event itself, of course. It is in a
way far better that these events occurred now, and in the way that they have, so
that the problems appear clearly in the world arena. They are actually thus of a
far less violent nature than they might otherwise have been.

Religious beliefs
will be examined as they have not been before, and their connections and
political affiliations. The Arab world still needs the West, and again, it is
better that those issues come to light now, while they must to some extent
consider the rest of the world.

Do not personally
give any more conscious consideration, either of you, to the events that you do
not want to happen. ( Long pause) Any such concentration, to whatever degree,
ties you in with those probabilities, so concentrate upon what you want, and as
far as public events are concerned, taken it for granted that sometimes even men
are wiser than they know.

Do you have
questions?

(Only a million of them,
I thought. “No, I guess not,” I said to Seth.)